


Tender Malice

by Tarnhag



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Bill's (redacted) does get mentioned, F/F, I'm SPEAKING that into existence and I WILL see that harvest, Not as violent as it probably should be but tonight we are drinking disaster gay juice, Sappy, Season 1 was just Villanelle not recognizing Eve as a true peer/individual, Season 2 was Eve not seeing Vilanelle as a true peer/individual, Spoilers for Seasons 1-2, The Irony of It All, There IS blood and axe murder mentioned tho, This is a prose fic! There is no plot only potent sapphic thots, Villanelle dresses too good and goes too hard to not also be a dramatic narrator, Yearning, and then I got sappy because I'M gay, prose, s3 WILL bring me mutual acceptance of depravity and gay, sorry class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24159274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarnhag/pseuds/Tarnhag
Summary: "Villanelle isn't sure about many things before she does them. She thinks, sure, but until the moment she trips the old woman in the grocery store for muttering under her breath about Villanelle's outfit, the moment she takes a girl at the club into her arms for the night, the moment she makes her kill in distinct display - she's considering."A loose writing of Villanelle's emotions towards Eve through Seasons 1 & 2
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	Tender Malice

Villanelle isn't sure about many things before she does them. She thinks, sure, but until the moment she trips the old woman in the grocery store for muttering under her breath about Villanelle's outfit, the moment she takes a girl at the club into her arms for the night, the moment she makes her kill in distinct display - she's considering.

Villanelle thinks about changing her outfits, her disguises, even in the middle of a job. _Is Lulu's hair too dark?_ A stop at the convenience store for the dye. _Is Victoria's outfit a bit too nice for this street_? Untucking a corner, rolling a sleeve, creasing a trouser. _Is Adela's face too warm_? Smoothing her face, bringing Villanelle closer to the surface. She feels these personas shift even as they ground her, a padding to absorb the shocks of Villanelle's whims.

With Eve, Villanelle felt sure. She still changed her mind, still unpredictable reacting to Eve's own erratic actions. But with every change the surety remained. With a blink of the eye her thoughts would still, the jostling to be the thought that existed in that moment ceasing, and she would know.

She was sure killing Bill was the right choice, to let Eve loose so she could chase Villanelle without holding back.

She was sure Eve would be a fulfilling game, that would come to an end just as Eve thought she had become the cat while Villanelle brought her claws down.

Then it was a freefall. Eve was more than a game. Or maybe Eve was still a game, but one Villanelle couldn't win. She played, and played, and Eve competed. Sometimes Villanelle thought the prize would be killing Eve. Then she became sure that winning would be having Eve.

Eve was wild enough to follow Villanelle, but normal enough to bring Villanelle a touch of domesticity she found herself craving. A tenderness reserved only for her, that she caught fleeting glimpses of in her past partners. But Eve never bored, Eve never let go. Eve held a focus Villanelle saw in herself, and wanted to have Eve see it too. Eve would bring Villanelle normalcy, but understand and witness Villanelle's actions in a way that normalized any aspect of her life. From shopping to wiping the blood splatter from her gun's casing, Eve would maintain that easy look and interested gleam to her eye as Villanelle teased details.

She would be with Eve - thoughts consumed with her dark hair, the way she felt her fear in its whole but still stepped into danger when Villanelle's presence receded. Eve, who Villanelle had ensured would be consumed by thoughts of her as well. Good or bad, she had Eve's eyes on her - and Eve's anger was a storm Villanelle could weather.

But then Eve stabbed her, and the freefall stopped. The surety returned, more potent than ever. Overjoyed by Eve's similarity to her, by her brutal tenderness that matched Villanelle so perfectly. Villanelle couldn't control Eve, couldn't predict her at all. Eve brought the surprise in the most pleasant way to Villanelle, the promise of someone who not only was consumed by Villanelle, but who wanted to consume Villanelle in turn. Eve changed because of Villanelle, and Villanelle felt herself change because of Eve. For all the imagery of Eve falling victim to the fruit that changed her nature, Villanelle felt like she had bitten the apple instead.

Past the agony of her gut, the panic as she fled, her thoughts unified into one thing.

A surety that she couldn't have Eve, but that Eve would chose her.

Working with Eve was nothing like she imagined. Eve placed walls between them, complete with holes to watch Villanelle through. Looks behind masks, controlled faces and clipped tones. Villanelle felt Eve pull their connection taught, an attempt to bring Villanelle to heel. But it wouldn't work. Villanelle remained sure that Eve would choose her, soothed by the scar on her stomach that spelled Eve's true feelings in a pale thin line with nothing left to read between.

Even in Eve's passive face, Villanelle found emotion. The gentle crease around her lips that betrayed her unseen smiles. The furrow in her brow that hadn't been there that first night they met, a sign of how much Eve had thought on her and how she had changed. The crinkle at the corner of her eye that guided Villanelle into her own amusement.

In Eve's blank face, Villanelle saw an open map. A lexicon to any emotion Villanelle could possibly feel with Eve that she couldn't find anywhere else. Eve's face was open in its history, and clear in its example to Villanelle.

Villanelle loved to see a new emotion cross Eve's face, a complication that added a new expression to Villanelle's atlas.

Aaron Peel was useless, a face slack with no history and no place in Villanelle's mind. He fixated on her, yes, but it felt like the mesmerized sway of a moth as the flame savaged its wings. Aaron Peel was an Icarus, and Villanelle was the sun. But Eve was Apollo, Villanelle's patron.

Aaron Peel's only use was to see Eve change, yet again. Her face going slack with shock and horror as Villanelle dragged the knife slow and shallow to bring Aaron Peel to his voyeuristic end. To bring Eve close to the metamorphosis she was sure would occur.

Raymond was her unexpected catalyst, and her test. Eve balked, but couldn't resist what Villanelle had seen in her in Paris. The part of her that wanted to speak Villanelle's language, to give voice to the deepest point inside of her. It took a certain level to land the first swing of the axe, thickly clipping into Raymond's back. It took another level to pull the axe from his shoulder and bring it back to his split skin; to spill the skull, an increasingly wet _thock_ lapping at Villanelle's ears with each swing. Villanelle couldn't swallow her smile, smothering her face into Eve's shoulder as she guided her away from her kill.

But Eve was too smart, too lucky. And Villanelle forgot that Eve wasn't hers. That Eve had to choose. And her test had a choice that wasn't a choice at all. Eve's rejection stung, worse than the scar on her stomach and in all the wrong ways. There was no tenderness in Eve's jerk away from her, in her anger as she spit out words at Villanelle.

Eve turned from her, set to walk away and still so sure Villanelle wouldn't go against her. Villanelle realized faintly as her thoughts burst into their threads and tangled to fill the space in her head that had been abandoned by Eve, that Eve had never gotten to learn what she asked in Paris. That she hadn't learned about Villanelle. Didn't know her.

Eve fell as Apollo to struggle under the sun as another Icarus, and in a final act to reciprocate Eve's tender malice, Villanelle pulled the trigger.


End file.
